3d Mo. 17th. Faith small, world strong; but this evening something like grasping after "the childly life beyond." A childly life I want. Oh for simplicity, faith, quietness, self-renunciation!
Yesterday rode alone to Wheal, Sister's mine. Gave W.B. tracts for the girls. Thence to Captain N., to get his daughters to collect for Bibles. His nice wife seemed interested; said it was very needful. Many families had not a Bible there; the place a century behind the West. Rode home dripping, but glad that I had not been turned back. Learned part of the 42d Psalm in German.
3d Mo. 27th. What testimony of gratitude can I record to that tender mercy which has drawn near to me this evening? Oh that the "Anon with joy" reception may not be united with the "no root in myself"! I have thought of the Israelitish wanderings, caused by faithless folly in refusing to "go up and possess the land." Oh, that lack of living appropriating faith may not thus protract the period ere my own passage through the spiritual Jordan, the river of self-renunciation, and death of the "old man," into the Beulah of a thorough introduction to the sheepfold! It is easy to say that it would be too presumptuous to venture on the final, full, childlike appropriation of Christ; but, oh, presumption, I do deeply feel, is more concerned in the delay. It is presumptuous to put off, till brighter evidences and clearer offers of mercy, the acceptance of grace to-day.
4th Mo. 14th. The Lord has been kind to me beyond expression. Not rapturous feeling, but calm and peaceful confidence,—though sometimes almost giving way to "the world, the flesh, and the devil," sometimes letting go faith; but, oh, He has been near through all; then when His face has shone upon me, how have I wondered that ever I loved the earth, more than Himself!
5th Mo. 3d. Bristol. On the way to the Yearly Meeting. First-day. Most interesting meeting. I think the connection of evangelical doctrine with Christian worship is often not enough considered. The mere natural unsanctified dread or awe of the Lord's presence is very different from that worship of God which is through Christ our Lord, who has made a way of access for us to the Father, who Himself loveth us. If this be overlooked, there is little essential distinction between Christian worship, and Oriental gnosticism—the delusion of raising the soul above the natural, by abstraction and contemplation of the Divine. This is the distinguishing glory of the gospel, that whereas the children of Israel said to Moses, "Speak thou to us, but let not God speak to us, lest we die," Christ, his antitype, hath broken down for his people "the middle wall of partition," hath abolished the enmity, and speaketh to us Himself as God, and yet as once in our flesh.
5th Mo. 10th. Letter from father, from Niagara. Awful spectacle, and most edifying emblem of His unchanging word of power whose voice is as the sound of many waters.
This evening had a nice meeting; my soul longed for light and life in the assembly.
Of our dear father's safe arrival in Liverpool we heard on our way to the train in the morning, and now we settled in to expect him we had so long lost!
And, after meeting him in London and alluding to conversation with friends who called to see him, she says,—
"But with father the fact of presence, real meeting, actual talk, seemed more engrossing than the thing talked. Oh that I had a really grateful heart to the Lord for these His mercies!"